Lest we forget, Liverpool beat Barcelona 4-0 at Wembley last summer. They then went on to record their best opening half season in the Premier League era. ‘Correlation vs causation’ and all that, but if a handsome pre-season win achieves nothing more than a shot of confidence ahead of the real business, then that’s still no bad thing.

Liverpool played superbly in the semi-final

The Reds will certainly have taken plenty of heart from their 3-0 win over the tournament hosts, Bayern Munich. They may have had fewer shots in total than the home side, by 14 to 12, but they had more in the box (nine to four) and, crucially, had far more shots on target.

Whilst Loris Karius in the Reds’ goal only had a single shot to save, Liverpool had six attempts on target. This means Klopp’s men had at least six in all of their first six pre-season encounters. It can only bode well for the new season that Klopp’s team are regularly testing opposition goalkeepers.

Mohamed Salah continued his impressive form since signing by bagging the second, and a wonderful pass from young Ben Woodburn played in Sturridge for the third. Another fine goal was ruled out, probably correctly, but both Ryan Kent and Marko Grujic played important parts in setting up and finishing the move respectively.

If your key players are finding form, then pre-season is worth it’s weight in gold. If some of the fringe and youth elements of the squad can contribute too, then all the better. Liverpool managed to do all of this and keep a clean sheet against the might of Bayern Munich. Their veins must be awash with confidence right now.

The final was a different challenge

The following night the Reds took on Atletico Madrid. It was a very different match, as it was always likely to be. Atleti are a team cast in the image of their no-nonsense manager, Diego Simeone. The game was certain to be a much tighter affair, and so it proved.

There was very little in it. The Spanish side took the lead after exposing some poor Liverpool defending. James Milner failed to prevent a cross, which allowed Sime Vrsaljko to set up a chance for Angel Correa. Danny Ward made a superb save to keep the shot out, but Keidi Bare was left unmarked by the Reds’ centre-backs to head into the net.

It was 55 minutes before Atleti had another shot, but then they didn’t need one either. Simeone’s side are masters at closing down a match and restricting chances for the opposition. This is especially true once they have a lead to protect.

So it proved. Liverpool only had four shots in the second half prior to the 82nd minute when Divock Origi won a contentious penalty. Firmino slotted it away, and at full-time a penalty shootout was used to decide who claimed the Audi Cup.

Henderson missed his spot kick, Atleti scored all five of theirs, and the cup was heading to Spain. After the match, Klopp said “Atletico wanted to win the cup. We did also, but we also wanted to play football, Atletico only wanted to win the cup.” The German manager will have been disappointed with Simeone’s spoiling tactics, but equally they won’t have surprised him.

The outlook is positive for Liverpool

Across two nights, a strong Liverpool team comfortably beat the German champions on their own patch, and then a weaker Reds side came back to draw with a crack defensive unit (albeit one that wasn’t at full strength either). There were plenty of positives to take, and Kopites will hope that these transfer into the season proper. History suggests that they will.

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]]>https://basstunedtored.com/2017/08/02/why-liverpools-audi-cup-performance-matters/feed/0lfc bayernbasstunedtoredDominic Solanke: A Quick Look At His Statshttps://basstunedtored.com/2017/05/31/dominic-solanke-a-quick-look-at-his-stats/
https://basstunedtored.com/2017/05/31/dominic-solanke-a-quick-look-at-his-stats/#respondWed, 31 May 2017 08:43:17 +0000http://basstunedtored.com/?p=12274Continue reading →]]>Liverpool have agreed a deal with Chelsea’s 19 year old striker, Dominic Solanke. The Basingstoke born forward will cost around £3m once a tribunal decides how much compensation the Reds owe the Blues for his football education to this point.

As is customary around here, I’ve taken a quick look at his stats to see what they tell us. Needless to say there’s not too much to go on, but he did spend the 2015/16 campaign on loan at Vitesse Arnhem, so I’ve compiled the numbers to see if anything stands out.

It doesn’t look too impressive, but let’s be realistic. He made his first three appearances before he’d even turned eighteen, and he was playing for a mid-table side overseas, so it would be foolish to expect too much. To be playing in a decent league at that age is an achievement in itself; only four players aged eighteen or younger made an appearance as a forward in Europe’s top five leagues this season, and they can’t all be Kylian Mbappe. The Eredivisie may not be in the top leagues, but as Vitesse are currently ranked by Euro Club Index as roughly equal standard as Hull City, it’s not hopelessly adrift of the elite level by any means.

That’s before you get to the recent online debate about the merit of radars too:

The above radar template is also for both attacking midfielders and forwards, and does seem to penalise strikers. For instance, Solanke averaged 1.0 key passes per 90 minutes played, which is at the bottom of that particular leg of the radar, yet only eight players averaged more in the Premier League when playing as a forward this season.

Away from the radar stats, the young forward scored seven goals against an expected goals tally of 6.4, meaning that his performance rated as 1.09; in other words, he scored 9% more goals than we might expect. Of course, he couldn’t score 0.4 of a goal if he tried, but it’s still a better performance than the likes of Aguero, Firmino, Sturridge and Rooney managed this season.

This is a signing based on potential, and whilst it’s not an exciting thing to consider, whatever happens with this guy at Liverpool they will definitely make a profit on him, and probably a decent one regardless. It’s smart transfer business which might turn out to be fabulous transfer business; that’s 100% fine by me.

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In it, the facts of Liverpool’s poor record against teams managed by the current West Bromwich Albion gaffer are rightly laid bare:

Liverpool go looking for their first ever away win in the Premier League against a Pulis managed-team on Sunday when they travel to the Hawthorns, a venue where they have not won since 2011.

Jurgen Klopp’s men won the reverse fixture 2-1 at Anfield in October for a first league victory over Pulis in nine attempts across five years.

But have the Reds deserved to win more of those games than they actually have? Let’s take a look.

We don’t have expected goals data going back to 2008, but thanks to my database of shots on target in Liverpool games which does go back that far, we can do a similar thing. The following table shows the Reds’ matches against teams managed by Tony Pulis, and how many shots on target both sides had.

We can see that ‘Pulis FC’ have never had more than one shot on target more than Liverpool in any of these matches, and have been out shot (on target) by at least six in six of the fifteen encounters. What’s probably the most galling though is 2008/09, where Stoke took a point from both matches despite not having a shot on target in either. This in theory cost Liverpool the title that season, and with shot stats like those surely the Reds deserved to win the matches?

Not all shots on target are equal, but using my database we can see how many points per game Liverpool have averaged depending on how many more or fewer shots on target they have had compared to the opposition. As the sample sizes vary wildly, I have grouped some of the smaller differences together to get the following table:

Using the points per game figures for the exact shot on target differences we can then get an ‘expected points’ figure for the matches that Liverpool have played against Tony Pulis’ teams. They can be seen in the below table.

We can see that in theory Liverpool have ‘deserved’ to win ten more points against Pulis sides than they’ve managed to in reality. The worst one here has to be when Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool lost away at Stoke in 2011/12, despite having seven shots on target to their hosts’ one. The power of that one being a penalty made the difference.

Over the previous 336 Premier League matches, Liverpool’s average shots on target difference per game has been 2.13, yet against the teams of Tony it has been 2.93; 38% better than average, in other words. In my opinion, Pulis has definitely been lucky to get as many good results against the Reds as he has.

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]]>https://basstunedtored.com/2017/04/13/is-tony-pulis-really-liverpools-nemesis/feed/0Klopp PulisbasstunedtoredWhich Teams Are Best At Defeating A Parked Bus?https://basstunedtored.com/2017/02/17/which-teams-are-best-at-defeating-a-parked-bus/
https://basstunedtored.com/2017/02/17/which-teams-are-best-at-defeating-a-parked-bus/#commentsFri, 17 Feb 2017 08:57:39 +0000http://basstunedtored.com/?p=12063Continue reading →]]>Liverpool’s win against Tottenham Hotspur last weekend was obviously well received by Reds everywhere, but at the same time it didn’t teach them anything new about the strengths and weaknesses of their team. Jürgen Klopp’s men have been ruthless this season against teams who play a high line, as Spurs did to suicidal effect at Anfield, but they have seemed toothless against the low block favoured by the Premier League’s lesser lights.

The Tomkins Times published a very good article this week (here) which looked at how Liverpool have fared against teams who have ‘parked the bus’ against them this season. The findings were certainly interesting, but in my continual quest for context with statistical analysis, I thought it would be worthwhile comparing the Reds to the other members of the big six to see how each team has fared. My assumption is that all teams struggle against a low block, but is that actually the case?

There’s no foolproof or easy way to determine which teams have defended deep against the top teams, but I have defined the matches in this study by the following: The big team is at home, and their opponent is in the bottom half of the division for average possession away from home. I have match-by-match data for the past two seasons, so for the record the potential bus parkers are listed in the table below. Ah, do come in, Mr Pulis…

As you’d expect, it’s not a perfect system (2015/16 champions Leicester didn’t wholly park their bus, despite their aversion to possession) but it will at least give us an indication of how the big six perform at home when they have a lot of the ball. In terms of total shots, Liverpool lead the way in terms of dominating matches:

If we look at just shots on target, then on a ratio basis the Reds drop to third best out of six:

To really get to the bottom of how teams fare against a low block though, we need to factor in chance quality, and so I shall defer to Opta’s clear-cut chances (which are defined by the data collector as “A situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score usually in a one-on-one scenario or from very close range”). Here’s the data, with the teams sorted by the clear-cut chance difference per game:

It probably won’t surprise Liverpool fans to see that their team does not fare well compared to their peers here, as the numbers match what they’ve seen; the Reds happily dominate matches against the ultra defensive teams, but consistently struggle to create top quality goal scoring opportunities, whilst also often allowing their opponents decent chances. I looked at the figures for Chelsea for this season alone as they were so poor last year, and their CCC difference in this campaign has been 2.00 per game, so excusing Chelsea from being so bad in 2015/16 would leave Liverpool bottom of this table.

Using a combination of the figures from the tables above, we can see what proportion of each team’s shots for and against fall into the clear-cut chance category (and the clubs are sorted here on the attacking side as we’re trying to determine who is best at breaking through a low block):

We can hereby say that Liverpool appear to have been the worst of the big six sides when it comes to breaking down bus parking teams at home in the last two seasons, and that’s before we get to being on the road, where Hull City are the most recent side to offer the Reds a wall of opposition whilst profiting from set pieces and counter attacks.

Wins against a wide-open Spurs are one thing, but Jürgen Klopp needs to figure out how to regularly beat opponents who employ a low block, and compared to their immediate rivals the Reds still have a fair way to go on that front. Obviously game state has a massive bearing here, as if you can score first then good chances should be easier to come by, but it’s clear that Liverpool need to up their attacking game against the Premier League’s lesser lights.

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]]>https://basstunedtored.com/2017/02/17/which-teams-are-best-at-defeating-a-parked-bus/feed/1bus-parkersbasstunedtoredbus-parkersbp-all-shotsbp-sotbp-cccbp-ccc-proportionDo Teams That Frequently Cross The Ball Get Bad Results?https://basstunedtored.com/2017/02/10/crossing-bad-results/
https://basstunedtored.com/2017/02/10/crossing-bad-results/#respondFri, 10 Feb 2017 09:25:02 +0000http://basstunedtored.com/?p=12039Continue reading →]]>It has been widely noted that Liverpool have been crossing the ball more frequently during their recent poor run of form, and whilst looking at which teams crossed the ball most last weekend, I happened to notice that all three of them lost. For the record, this was Stoke and Crystal Palace, alongside Liverpool, and I used a purely arbitrary figure of at least thirty crosses excluding corners.

I wondered if teams that had crossed lots this season often had poor results, and it turns out that they have. The following table shows the twenty-five occasions so far in the 2016/17 Premier League that a team has attempted at least thirty crosses (not including corners).

The teams crossing at least thirty times have amassed just nineteen points between them, at a rate of just 0.76 points per game, and it’s interesting that it has not just been the struggling sides who have had to resort to this; Liverpool and Manchester City appear on the list three times, and Manchester United four.

What is clear when reviewing the matches in question is that there has often been an air of desperation about the team doing all the crossing. United were behind against both Boro and Stoke before claiming points late on, and similarly claimed an injury-time winner at Hull. Manchester City were battered at Leicester and humbled at home by Chelsea. Liverpool were behind in three matches they’d have expected to win; at home to West Ham and Swansea, and then away at Hull. The likes of Bournemouth, Everton and Palace were all behind until late on, claiming a share of the points in the last ten minutes. Stoke were 1-0 down at West Brom inside six minutes and spent the following eighty-four trying to cross their way to an equaliser which never arrived.

And on it goes. I’m not suggesting that crossing will directly lead to a bad result of course (Southampton had thirty crosses in their comfortable home win over Burnley, for instance), but if your team is struggling in a match and sending in a truck load of crosses, don’t be too surprised if they fail to win. No one likes it when you appear desperate, do they? It appears that bad results lead to frequent crossing, not the other way around.